Ukiah City Council divided on how to spend extra revenues

While updating the Ukiah City Council on next year's budget Wednesday, Finance Director Gordon Elton announced he will be retiring at the end of August.

"This will be my last budget session," Elton said. "I've enjoyed working here very much, even though there's been more challenges than I needed."

Elton and City Manager Jane Chambers also told the council that the city was still facing a deficit of nearly a million dollars for Fiscal Year 2013-14.

"We've had a lot of people say that our numbers can't be right, but the numbers have flowed in pretty much as we expected," Chambers said. "We currently have a deficit of about $960,000 with all of the budget requests and personnel requests," adding that she hadn't "sat down with all of the departments yet to go through the numbers."

Elton pointed out that part of the "significant decline in revenue for 2013-14" is the $680,000 the city no longer collects for providing ambulance services.

"I'm an average Ukiahan here," said Vice-Mayor Phil Baldwin. "It doesn't look like the loss of our ambulance service is serving us very well if it's showing up as a loss of $500,000. How do we make that make sense?"

"You're looking at the half-empty side -- the half full-side is not evident in this side of the presentation," Elton said, adding that part of the positive effect is "we have less personnel in the fire department."

When Baldwin said he was "waiting for the half-full part," Chambers said, "When we made the decision, I think we all recognized it was a difficult decision to make. We were still making income with the ambulance, but we could see that it wasn't going to be a good, solid business venture that much longer. It cost us more to operate the ambulance by more than half."

Chambers later told the council about $1.185 million in short-term revenue and one-time payments, including $250,000 allocated for administrative costs related to the Successor Agency to the Ukiah Redevelopment Agency, can be applied to help reduce the deficit for next year.

Chambers is also anticipating receiving $375,000 in "repayments related to property tax revenues" related to the vehicle license fee, Triple Flip allocations and a property tax loan, and recommends that the city use those funds to pay for two additional police officers for the next two budget years.

"Why are you suggesting to bring (new officers) on if we don't have a constant revenue stream?" asked Council member Mari Rodin. "I don't think we should use one-time money to support personnel."

"It isn't a longterm plan exactly, but it is a step toward getting what we all say we want, which is more officers on the street," said Council member Mary Anne Landis. "I support spending the money that way."

"I think at the end of those two years you will have some choices (of how to pay for them), but if not, the chief expects some attrition, so you wouldn't have to lay off some officers," Chambers said.

"I thought the goal was to increase the number of officers?" said Mayor Doug Crane.

"Yes, the goal would be to sustain the number (of officers)," Chambers said, adding that she wanted to tell Ukiah Police Chief Chris Dewey to start the hiring process, which she said would take six to seven months.

Finally, to help pay for street repairs, Chambers notes that "at least $560,000" may be available in "grant and program income accounts" that were recently uncovered during the city's conversion to a new financial system.

When Baldwin asked, "Where did that $560,000 sit?", Elton said, "in a variety of grants," explaining that "under certain circumstances, those available funds can be used for city purposes."

"There's kind of a feeling here that you're pulling change out of the sofa," said Council member Benj Thomas, and Chambers said the city might have to give back the money "if the auditor looks at it and says, you guys got it wrong, it's restricted.'"

Landis said she supported the idea of putting some of the money toward street maintenance, but not all of it.

During the public comment period, Senior Planner Kim Jordan said she was representing the city's "management unit" and asked that the city direct all the revenues discussed toward the deficit.

"It appears that there is almost $1.2 million that could be used to substantially reduce the deficit for next year, and we request that the City Council consider using that money to address the projected deficit and maintain the reserves rather than creating new programs and adding positions," Jordan said. "Should the council choose to add those new programs and positions, we ask that it also identify the future and ongoing funding sources of revenue to sustain them. We also ask that the council not look to city employees as the funding source for those new programs and positions."

The council did not vote on the item as it was only presented as a report.

Justine Frederiksen can be reached at udjjf@ukiahdj.com, on Twitter @JustFrederiksen or at 468-3521.